Israeli Internal Security Minister Requests Ban Of Two Temple Mount Charities Funded By Israeli Muslim Brotherhood

Israeli media is reporting that the country’s Internal Security minister has asked the Minister of Defense to urgently ban two organizations operating on the Temple Mount and funded by the Muslim Brotherhood in Israel. According to the I24news report:

August 24, 2015 Internal Security Minister Gilad Erdan wrote a letter on Monday to Minster of Defense Moshe Ya’alon, asking him to urgently outlaw two radical groups who operate on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem and have caused an ‘escalation and deterioration in the security situation.’

The ‘Morabiton’ and ‘Morabitat’ groups of ‘sentries’ are comprised of Islamist fundamentalists who harass Jewish visitors to the holy site, ostensibly while guarding the Islamic holy sites. The groups receive funding from the radical Islamic Movement.

Erdan notes that events on the Temple Mount have previously led young people to carry out terrorist activities, and that this was likely to occur again in the future. He declared that the disruption to public order on the Temple Mount constituted a danger to the public.

The letter received the support of Israel’s police and Shin Bet (internal security service), as well as the State’s Attorney and Attorney General. If the groups were to be outlawed this would enable law enforcement actions to be taken against them, something which is currently not allowed.

The radical northern wing of the Islamic Movement in Israel is led by Sheikh Raed Salah. The movement is reluctantly tolerated by Israel’s security forces but is under constant surveillance due to its perceived links with the militant Hamas movement that controls the Gaza Strip, as well as with other Islamist groups worldwide. Salah’s ‘virulent anti-semitism’ led to him being banned from the United Kingdom.

According to another Israeli media report, Raed Salah spoke out against the move saying that Arabs who attack police and Jewish visitors on the Temple Mount represent “the ‘honor’ of the Muslim nation and the Arab world”:

Sheikh Raed Salah, head of the radical Islamic Movement in Israel, gave an interview to the Hamas paper Palestine, in which he said the entire Palestinian Arab society – both those with and without Israeli citizenship – needs to unite to “help” Jerusalem and the Al-Aqsa Mosque.

The Arab rioters who attack police and Jewish visitors on the Temple Mount on a regular basis symbolize the “honor” of the Muslim nation and the Arab world, according to Salah.

Salah just last month called to conquer the Temple Mount, saying, “we must go out against all these breaches until the occupation is removed.”

The GMBDW reported in January 2015 that the internal security service Shin Bet had shut down three Islamic charities for allegedly inciting violence against Jews and Israeli security forces. According an Israel Hayom report, the charities were created in October 2014 by the northern branch of the Islamic movement in Israel.

In June 2014, the GMBDW reported on claims by the Shin Bet that a senior Hamas official arrested in April had admitted that Hamas is exploiting the Islamic Movement in Israel to promote its interests in Jerusalem. We had reported a few days earlier that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wanted to outlaw the “Northern branch” of the Islamic Movement headed by Raed Salah and essentially comprising the Israeli Muslim Brotherhood.

For profile on Raed Salah, go here.